For All The Young People Who Think Being Queer Means You'll Die Alone

I recently received this message with questions from an 18-year-old man who had just come out for the first time, and my answer to him directly is below, but in truth, everything I've written here applies to anyone who is young, struggling with their identity, and feels worried that they'll be alone forever...

"I recently plucked up the courage to tell my best friend that I’m gay. She was completely fine with it, but I’m not entirely sure how to tell some other people I know are homophobic.

I’m going to university in September and I've never had a boyfriend or any sexual experiences, not even my first kiss. I lack confidence and knowledge of how to meet other gay guys and talk to them. Nor do I have much knowledge of how to get ready for my first sexual encounter, such as how to prepare myself for anal sex or what to actually expect during sex.

There's this guy who I know who is gay, and I kind of like him and I thought that maybe he liked me.

But he told me tonight that he was going to meet someone for a shag and I got really jealous and upset. I'm fat and ugly and I know I’ll never find a boyfriend, someone to love me for who I am. I just want someone to be there for me.

I’m finding it very hard to think of reasons to keep on living. All my straight friends have someone, but because of how I look no one is interested in me. I don’t know how long I can keep going. Any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

James"

Dear James,

That you reached out tells me you see some hope.

You should know that while things seem dismal right now, they won’t remain this way. It’s great that you told your best friend and that her response was so supportive. We all need that courage to come out and be ourselves, so my first suggestion is to find a local therapist who can help you learn some skills to avoid questioning your reason for living.

Reading your letter, I couldn’t help recalling all the times I felt exactly as you do right now.

When I was dating, I felt there was so much was wrong with me that guys would not like. I have client after client saying what he feels is wrong about himself and makes him ineligible for dating. Whatever sexual orientation or gender we identify with, we all take rejection personally and invent stories in our heads about what’s wrong with us.

I'm going to challenge some of your beliefs that are self-destructive and may fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy.

First, you don’t know that you’ll never find someone.

At only 18, you’ve hardly had a chance to get out and have dating experiences. Not to minimize your problems because of your age, but by age 18, even today, when people come out so much younger, most gay male teens haven’t kissed another boy or had a relationship.

And your other belief, that “all of [your] straight friends have someone,” is highly unlikely.

I’m sure lots of them don’t. I was single all throughout my 20’s, and whenever I saw a married guy wearing a wedding ring I would become upset. He had someone, and I was single, and that proved there was something wrong with me. In truth, it proved nothing. Just like your straight friends having someone proves nothing.

Do you know how people gain confidence to date and learn to meet and interact with other guys? By getting out there and doing it!

The only way to “practice” dating involves putting yourself out there and being vulnerable to rejection, embarrassment, and heartbreak. But with that comes new people with varied interests who teach you things about yourself you never knew. Also, you’ll accumulate a ‘bank account’ of good times and stories of bad dates and the funny, outrageous things guys do.

If you don’t know how to prepare for your first sexual encounter, that’s normal, too.

Straight males and females also need to learn sexual confidence by practicing.

Movies and books make it all seem so easy, but the truth is that anyone’s first experience will be clumsy, awkward and unsuccessful. Many of us men, feeling pressure to do everything right, suffer performance anxiety, which contributes to the difficulty of maintaining an erection or causes premature ejaculation.

Difficult as it sounds, I always recommend that people date at least three times before having sexual contact. You can kiss, hug and cuddle, but anything else changes the relationship and doesn’t offer emotional attachment, as do waiting and anticipating what will be.

We all find it hard to deal with acts of homophobia.

I find the kind of gay men who have the hardest time with homophobia are those who avoid conflict and try to keep the peace.

When you get to university, the first important thing to do is find the LGBTQ groups on campus.

That way you’ll have allies you can turn to when you do encounter homophobes, which we all do, constantly. You can even role-play with them how to deal with someone who tries to demean you because you’ll need the skills to deal with that. Peer pressure makes us all feel that we should be in a relationship, and if not, there’s something wrong with us. We’re pushed into forcing emotions prematurely rather than letting a relationship develop organically.

There is nothing wrong with you!

When you wrote that you don’t know how long you can keep on living without someone who likes you for who you are, the therapist in me wonders what messages you received while growing up. Usually, clients who say things like that they come from families who didn’t make them feel loved for who they were. Without knowing you or your family, I would ask that you consider whether those feelings derive from memories of how you felt as a child.

The messages we receive growing up gay also makes us feel damaged and unlovable.

So I don’t want to minimize the negative effects of these messages. We're taught that no one would love us if they really knew who we were — gay. This negative belief enters our relationships unconsciously as a truth.

Our relationships repeat the patterns, echo the beliefs and buy into the messages we learned in childhood. Positive messages, unless unrealistically flattering, don’t usually interrupt our lives. But the negative ones do, even if we don’t accept them consciously. That’s why you need to examine them and make sure you’re not projecting them on to your potential boyfriends.

Here are some things to remember:

1. If someone isn’t into you, that’s not about you.

It reflects their tastes and their preferences. It’s too easy to tell yourself why someone’s not interested or who rejected you, but those are just fabricated stories in your head.

The truth is that consciously and unconsciously everyone has a ‘template’ in mind of what he’s looking for. A stranger either fits that image or not. If not, then it is nothing personal. You’re simply not his type: physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and even sexually.

And yes, many inexperienced guys want inexperienced guys, too!

2. If you feel bothered by anything about yourself, in your case, your weight, then do something about it, even if it is a small step.

Start some light exercise, or change the way you eat. It doesn’t have to be a huge change but something towards feeling better about yourself. Identify things about your body you think are attractive and consider enjoying and embracing them.

3. Get a support group of close friends to help challenge your negative beliefs about yourself.

This way, when you experience rejection or start thinking negatively about yourself, they can remind you who you really are.

4. If you want to experiment with anal sex, buy some lube and a dildo and explore what it feels like around your anus and inside.

You’ll gain some knowledge about yourself and what works for you.

5. Avoid “catastrophizing” everything.

When things don’t go our way, we tell ourselves, “It will always be like this and will only get worse.” Then we start detailing exactly how much worse. Though this feels like logical planning ahead, it’s usually a waste of time.

Whenever you catch yourself doing this, remind yourself that you can never know what’s going to happen. Meeting another person can change your life overnight. Be open to possibilities, and remember that there are plenty of them out there.

You can also reach out to The Trevor Lifeline for crisis and suicide intervention 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386. The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24.

Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW, is a psychotherapist and the author of books on gay male development and gay male couples, including Is My Husband Gay, Straight or Bi: A Guide For Women Concerned About Their Men.Follow him on Twitter and enjoy his YouTube channel.